Comfort Food & Craft Cocktails

These days, we seem to need a lot of hyphenated adjectives, or at least compound ones, to convey the essence of a restaurant. No longer does it suffice to say, oh it’s contemporary American fare, or Italian-American—the marketplace is far too competitive, and diners are becoming more savvy about where they spend their dollars.

In the case of The Hamilton Kitchen & Bar, a bright facet of the jewel that is starting to sparkle again (a.k.a., downtown Allentown), you need a few of those phrases. Seasonal American.

Comfort food-driven. An industrial-meets-retro mid-century vibe. Re-imagined classics. Scratch-made fare. Craft cocktail hotspot. Basically, any and all of those will do. As 33-year-old manager and beverage guru Jason Lonigro puts it, “There’s a whole bunch of hipster names you could give it,” he says, laughing. “But we serve everything and everyone—from flip-flops to Florsheims. We’re everything you want us to be,” he says. He’s echoing the words of owner Donny Petridis, who describes the concept thus: “I wanted a restaurant everyone would accept. I wanted to be somebody’s go-to place in the neighborhood,” says Petridis, a former part owner of Melt and Blue restaurants with George Paxos.

“Restaurant food should be what you can’t get at home.”

The Hamilton, as they call it for short, has only been open since July 2014—just about six months at this writing—but it is among good company. Although Petridis admits that, when he signed the lease in 2012, he was a little nervous about its opening, those fears are dissipating, one comfort-driven meal and righteously crafted cocktail after another. In short, it’s quickly becoming that go-to place for a drink and a burger at the bar, a dinner among friends or a special loved one, a spot for corporate events in the back, behind closed doors and, if 2015 is any indication thus far, a place to have your wedding. The Hamilton Kitchen joins Cosmopolitan, which opened its glass doors in fall 2010, and other new-ish eateries that have since sprung up—Roar Social House, Crust (a wood-fired pizza joint), an outpost of the chain Chickie’s and Pete’s and the Latin-themed Manifiesto. With the opening of the PP&L Center,

home to Phantoms Hockey and other entertainment (the Eagles played in September, didja hear?), all of those people need somewhere to eat.

Granted, people who live downtown have always needed somewhere to eat. The theory goes that urban cores require more residents and housing in order to create a sustainable economic change and keep those booths and tables filled. More than half of the apartments at the adjacent Strata Center are filled; the rumor is that it will be opening in June of 2015. The Marriott property—the aptly named Renaissance—will be open by the time this is published.

If you spent some time in Allentown this past summer, you likely saw the extensive—and buzzing—outside bar seating area in front of the restaurant, facing the PP&L Center. Once you step inside you’re greeted with a spacious, airy interior with high ceilings and a bar that offers what looks to be an entire wall of alcohol, its industrial-chic details evoking the region’s former economic engines. Servers wear navy blue and white gingham shirts and jeans and dish up mid-century classics on a “supper” menu such as meatloaf, deviled eggs and fried chicken, along with tried-and-true dishes ranging from New York strip steak to pan-seared scallops and a 15-ounce rack of lamb. The vintage vibe is palpable, but Hamilton Kitchen is thoroughly modern.

True, you might be able to find these dishes at home, at your grandmother’s, or as in the case of the deviled eggs, a neighborhood picnic. You might even taste the likes of them at diners or even other restaurants nearby, but the difference here, of course, is the elevated digs, the scratch-made fare and the ways in which those classics are twisted.

“Restaurant food should be what you can’t get at home,” says 33-year-old Executive Chef Drew Stark. His arrival at Hamilton Kitchen is a homecoming of sorts—his parents are Lehigh Valley natives but he grew up in Philadelphia. Stark is a graduate of Johnson & Wales who spent time cooking in New York, Boston and the Philadelphia area. Kitchens grabbed his attention because the alternatives seemed unappealing. “I didn’t want to sit behind a desk my whole life,” he says. The work is immediate, the feedback instantaneous. “As stressful as it is, and as messed up as Saturdays can be sometimes, there’s a sense of accomplishment at the end of the night,” he says.

All that training and time behind the line means that what’s on your plate is the result of sourcing lengths you might not go to, choices for accompaniments and flavor combos you might not think of, and methods you might not indulge in. For example, the wildly popular shrimp and grits features cornmeal from a vendor in Mississippi who ships it up twice monthly, freshly ground. The warm cheese curds, presented with honey and Marcona almonds, which Chef Stark calls “glamorous mozzarella sticks,” come from Kirchenberg Farms in Fleetwood. We need to stop for just a minute to discuss the deviled eggs trio, a small plate that converted me. “There’s really nothing to them,” says Stark. “It’s just mayo, Dijon [mustard], salt and pepper and an egg yolk.” Maybe so, but it’s what you do with it. Each one is different, with crispy house-smoked bacon, roasted shallots and piquillo peppers. It’s turned into a bestseller.

And oh, the fried chicken. Food that’s fried makes an unholy mess of your kitchen and, unless you have proper ventilation, a smell that lingers (side note: why does Giant always smell like fried chicken?). You might not make this at home frequently, nor might you season it as liberally as Chef Stark does. Nor might you accompany it with such sky-high fluffy cornmeal biscuits. Nor, instead of the traditional choice collards, might you present the leafy-green du jour—a kale-loaded slaw with cabbage. “People love these dishes,” says Lonigro.

“When I first talked about how I wanted to put this on the menu, my management team looked at me like I was crazy. You’ve spent what on this restaurant and you want to put fried chicken on it?” laughs Petridis.

It might also mean that what you’re served comes to you in a manner that surprises. The fried chicken, for example, is brought to you not on a plate, but on an All-Clad stainless steel round gratin pan. The silverware is hefty in your hands, but not cumbersome.

“I am very detail-oriented,” says Petridis. “Whether that means the lighting or the music or the weight of the silverware, I think of all these things,” he says. Detail-oriented people know that all these little pieces add up. If one of those details is awry, when the music is off for the vibe or simply too loud, it can sour one’s impression. Or if the food is fantastic but the server is standoffish. Or if the bar menu doesn’t jive with what’s happening in the kitchen. That’s where it pays to pay attention and make that extra effort. At the bar, it means finding rare items.

For example, Lonigro was on the lookout one December morning for one of the hardest-to-find bourbons out there—Pappy Van Winkle. On the one hand, his efforts mean that patrons will experience something that’s trendy and likely new to them—but they’ll also probably learn something new, if their bartender is doing his or her job well. “People are raving about our Manhattans and Old-Fashioneds, asking us, ‘What do you put in them?’” says Petridis. While Hamilton employs house-made syrups and fresh juices, it’s also execution. “It’s not a mystery. We’re just making it the right way, and we put as much attention to the balance of drinks as a chef would a dish in the kitchen,” says Petridis. As Lonigro puts it, “We are bartenders who make really good drinks. We are not mixologists with waxed mustaches,” he says.

What they’re mixing should keep most people exploring the options for weeks and weeks. Draft beers, for instance, change constantly, and they’re using a wine keg system—something relatively new for this region. “It’s amazing. It tastes like a glass from a fresh bottle, every time,” says Petridis. The beverage menu is impressively hefty and simultaneously daunting. The specialty is whiskeys and bourbons; there are more than 300 of them, many American bourbons from small-batch or artisanal distilleries. The bar currently serves six exclusive, hand-selected single barrel whiskeys from Jefferson’s, available in its cocktails and for tasting flights. You’ll also find Four Roses along with some Pennsylvania craft distilleries, such as single malts from Hewn in Pipersville, Wigle in Pittsburgh, which is doing hopped, apple and whiskeys distilled from a mocha porter, and Dad’s Hat rye whiskey, based in Bristol. “People are going bonkers with bourbon. They aren’t afraid of flavor anymore,” says Lonigro.

“People are raving about our Manhattans and Old-Fashioneds...”

You start asking him questions, and it’s easy to see why Petridis hired Lonigro, who worked with Emeril Lagasse’s restaurants for 13 years, including five at the Sands. “There is no better American craft than bartending,” says Lonigro, who says they didn’t just want to slap together a cocktail list and serve drinks in “fancy glasses.” “You have to treat every cocktail as if it is a memory in the making,” he says.

There you have it, people. Memories served daily at the Hamilton Kitchen, with a side of restaurant-sized nostalgia.